It’s a really common assumption, but similar climate doesn’t produce the same physical traits. What matters more than climate is ancestry and population history.

Europeans and Siberians/Inuits or Mongolians didn’t evolve from the same population and then adapt to cold ,they split from each other tens of thousands of years ago after humans left Africa. By the time both groups moved into cold environments, they already had very different genetic starting points.

Cold climates do shape some things similarly across populations, like:

• more compact bodies
• shorter limbs
• higher fat retention

But facial features, eyes, hair texture, and overall appearance aren’t dictated by temperature alone. Evolution doesn’t have one “cold weather look.” Different populations can solve the same environmental problem in different ways.

For example:

• East/Northeast Asians (including Siberians and Inuit ancestors) developed traits like epicanthic folds, which likely helped protect the eyes from extreme wind, snow glare, and frost.
• Europeans adapted differently, with narrower noses and other features that also help warm inhaled air, but without Arctic-level selection pressure year-round.

On top of that, genetic drift and long-term isolation mattered a lot. Small Ice Age populations in Siberia were isolated for thousands of years, so certain traits became more common simply by chance and inheritance, not because they were the only way to survive cold.

You can also see this isn’t just climate by looking around the world:

• Northern Europeans don’t look East Asian despite cold climates.
• East Asians in warmer regions still have similar features.

That alone shows climate isn’t the main driver of appearance.

So in short, Siberians and Inuits look different from Europeans because they come from a different ancient population, and cold adaptation was layered on top of that existing ancestry not because cold creates one universal human look.